Policy Brief: Building a More ‘People-oriented’ Human Rights Institution in ASEAN: Challenges and Prospects

Since the late 2007, The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has embarked on a historic milestone in its journey towards establishing a more open regionalism. The process was finally advanced with the all 10 member states ratified the Charter, shifting ASEAN from such loose ‘association’ into a more consolidated organisation. However, the important new features of ASEAN is not only its structured organisational design, but also its fundamental commitments in opening the regional organisation for a wider non-state actors’ participations and upholding the human rights norm.